HCCI is a known process for fueling a diesel engine in a manner that creates a substantially homogeneous air-fuel charge inside an engine cylinder during a compression upstroke of an engine cycle. After a desired quantity of fuel for the charge has been injected into the cylinder to create a substantially homogeneous air-fuel mixture, the increasing compression of the charge by the upstroking piston creates sufficiently large pressure to cause auto-ignition of the charge. In other words, the HCCI mode of operation of a diesel engine may be said to comprise 1) injecting a desired amount of fuel into a cylinder at an appropriate time during the compression upstroke so that the injected fuel mixes with charge air that has entered the cylinder during the preceding intake downstroke and early portion of the compression upstroke in a manner that forms a substantially homogeneous mixture within the cylinder, and then 2) increasingly compressing the mixture to the point of auto-ignition near or at top dead center (TDC). Auto-ignition may occur as the substantially simultaneous spontaneous combustion of vaporized fuel at various locations within the mixture. No additional fuel is injected after auto-ignition.
One of the attributes of HCCI is that relatively lean, or dilute, mixtures can be combusted, keeping the combustion temperatures relatively low. By avoiding the creation of relatively higher combustion temperatures, HCCI can yield significant reductions in the generation of NOX, an undesired constituent of engine exhaust gas.
Another attribute of HCCI is that auto-ignition of a substantially homogeneous air-fuel charge generates more complete combustion and consequently relatively less soot in engine exhaust.
The potential benefit of HCCI on reducing tailpipe emissions is therefore rather significant, and consequently HCCI is a subject of active investigation and development by scientists and engineers.
One aspect of HCCI seems to impose a limit on the extent to which it can provide drastically reduced tailpipe emissions of soot and NOX. At higher engine speeds and larger engine loads, the rate of combustion is difficult to control. Consequently, known engine control strategies may utilize HCCI only at relatively lower speeds and smaller engine loads. At higher speeds and/or larger loads, the engine is fueled so that the fuel combusts by conventional diesel (CD) combustion.
The nature of a diesel engine and the commercial availability of fuel injection systems that can control fuel injection with great precision allow fuel to be injected as a series of individual injections during an engine cycle. Hence known fueling systems in diesel engines can serve to control injection of fuel for both CD combustion and HCCI combustion.
CD fuel injection during an engine cycle is sometimes described by its particular fueling pulses, such as pilot injection pulses, main injection pulses, and post-injection pulses. Any particular fuel injection process typically always comprises at least one main fuel injection pulse, with one or more pilot and/or post-injection pulses being optional possibilities.
Contemporary fuel injection systems allow injection pressure, injection rate, and injection timing to be controlled with high degrees of precision so that fuel can be injected into a cylinder in precise quantities at precise times during an engine cycle. That is why known fuel injection and associated processing systems can handle both CD and HCCI combustion. An engine that can operate selectively in a CD combustion mode and an HCCI combustion mode depending on factors such as speed and load is sometimes called a hybrid HCCI diesel engine.
Several pending U.S. Patent Applications of the inventors disclose engines, systems, and methods for operating diesel engines selectively in different combustion modes including HCCI and CD modes. Those inventions take advantage of the capabilities of known fuel injection and processing systems to control fuel injections in different ways depending on certain aspects of engine operation. Exactly how any particular fuel injection system will be controlled by an associated processing system in any given engine will depend on specifics of the engine, the fuel injection system, and the processing system.
Because a diesel engine that powers a motor vehicle runs at different speeds and loads depending on various inputs to the vehicle and engine that influence engine operation, fueling requirements change as speed and load change. An associated processing system processes data indicative of parameters such as engine speed and engine load to develop control data for setting desired engine fueling for particular operating conditions that will assure proper control of the fuel injection system for various combinations of engine speed and engine load.
HCCI may be considered one of several alternative combustion processes for a compression ignition engine. Other processes that may be considered alternative combustion processes include Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI), Dilution Controlled Combustion Systems (DCCS), and Highly Premixed Combustion Systems (HPCS).
By whatever name an alternative combustion system or process may be called, a common attribute is that fuel is injected into a cylinder well before TDC to form an air-fuel charge that is increasingly compressed until auto-ignition occurs near or at top dead center (TDC).
It is commonly known that limiting peak combustion temperatures in an engine can aid in reducing the amount of undesired products of combustion in engine exhaust. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is commonly used in internal combustion engines to aid in limiting peak combustion temperatures. A variety of known EGR strategies are described in various patents and technical literature. The amount of exhaust gas recirculated is typically controlled according to how the engine is being operated. At some times more exhaust gas is recirculated, at other times less.
It is also known to have more than one EGR valve in an engine and to selectively use them according to how the engine is being operated. It is also known to use a heat exchanger, i.e. a cooler, to cool recirculated exhaust gas.